Alex R. wrote:
Besides the valid point that the public should have a say in the logo outcome it is not unreasonable to require some kind of registration before voting. That is done in practically all democracies including member and shareholder corporations.
I didn't know we had become a democracy. I've seen no evidence that Wikimedia is anything but a proprietary organization.
Otherwise someone with a lot of friends can stuff the ballots. There is the question of fixing the registration deadline date: has it past, is it now or is it a future date? Past dates prevent anyone from signing up under many names, a future date will allow more people to register effectively giving newcomers a voice.
The best way to deal with possible ballot box stuffing is still to create a situation where it doesn't matter anyway. Anything else devotes an awful lot of energy on a purely speculative problem. I don't dispute that we have had a few people who voted two minutes after they found out about Wikipedia, but what difference do a few people like that make?
Perhaps 2nd round votes can be posted on the voting pages in two categories. Registered or anonymous. The anonymous vote can be compared with the registered vote to see if they differ signficantly. Having voting counted in two categories should not be very complicated and the results could then be posted so that Erick's proposal is embedded into the second stage voting procedure; someone will not have to spend lots of time analyzing data. We will see if there is a wildly differing outcome between registered Wikipedians and the public at large and can discuss it then. There will also be some hard data to discuss beyond allegations. What ever decision is taken then, we will know who was the significant voting block, registered users or anyone who comes onto the site and votes; objections to including the public votes can be discussed then.
The entire process for choosing a logo has me ROTFWL. The only thing that it's proving to me is what's wrong with voting.
Ec